International

"Department of Energy invested millions to develop cutting-edge technology to power electric vehicles, but that know-how is now in foreign hands"

"LEIPZIG, Germany — For 800 years, the St. Thomas Boys Choir has been filling churches with pure, young voices. Now it’s confronting a confounding phenomenon: Every year, those voices are cracking with teenage angst just a little earlier than before."

An uncommon and little-understood disease called Kawasaki disease may actually be spread by seasonal winds from Central Asia, new research strongly suggests. The sometimes fatal disease has been able to cross the Pacific to the United States.

Jennifer Frazer reports for Nature News April 4, 2012.

"This year's frenzy of oil and gas exploration in newly accessible Arctic waters could be the harbinger of even starker changes to come. If, as many scientists predict, currently inaccessible sea lanes across the top of the world become navigable in the coming decades, they could redraw global trading routes -- and perhaps geopolitics -- forever."

"The dramatic temperature increases that thawed the last ice age followed spikes in carbon dioxide levels in the air, a new study finds. Researchers say that further strengthens the scientific case explaining current man-made global warming."

Scientists say aerosols -- which encourage the formation of clouds, which in turn cool the earth -- may be changing ocean currents in ways that promote climate change.

"BANGKOK -- A floating mosque and golf course for the submerging Maldives islands. Amphibious homes in the Netherlands lifted to safety as waters surge beneath them. A hospital perched on 400 stilts to protect patients from Thailand's devastating floods and the encroaching sea."

"By showing that Arctic climate change is no longer just a problem for the polar bear, a new study may finally dispel the view that what happens in the Arctic, stays in the Arctic."

"TOKYO — The damage to one of three stricken reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi plant could be worse than previously thought, a recent internal investigation has shown, raising new concerns over the plant’s stability and complicating the post-disaster cleanup."